


Jack Morrison's Paranoia

by Valaxiom



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blind Character, Blind! Soldier: 76, Crazy exes, Dorado, Explanations, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Hero, Pre-Alive and Pre-Recall, Terrible Boyfriend Gabriel Reyes, bullet wounds, mostly without the comfort tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7274194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valaxiom/pseuds/Valaxiom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After cleaning up the streets of Dorado, the vigilante Soldier: 76 decides to check on an old, disused Overwatch safehouse. He finds more than just dust and supplies. </p><p>Takes place soon after "Hero" and before the events of "Alive" and "Recall".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jack Morrison's Paranoia

**Author's Note:**

> I think I sort-of ship Reaper76, but as a dated-for-a-while-back-in-Overwatch-before-breaking-up-badly sort of way. The breakup involved Reyes having a hissy fit and destroying an entire base. Now they're basically both a couple of grumpy old men who have a love/hate relationship. 
> 
> This can be read as a prequel to my first one-shot, "A Better World".

Soldier: 76 realized that he had fucked up at about the same time he got a round of bullets in his stomach.

This mission was supposed to have been simple, straightforward: check on an old Overwatch safehouse in Dorado. After having gotten the Los Meurtos gang off the streets and ruining their supply of weapons, Soldier 76 had decided that there was enough time to scope out the safehouse and be absolutely sure that it was still untouched. It also wouldn’t hurt to pick up some extra ammunition and medical supplies. If his memory was correct, this safehouse should still have some of the basics stocked away.

The streets were dark, but with his visor comfortably covering most of his face, Soldier 76 could see the sleeping city as though it were bathed in sunshine. The safehouse was just as he remembered it: a townhouse tucked away on a quiet street in the middle of the city. The door had an old-fashioned keyhole instead of one of the more recent, more secure biometric scanners.

Although, since any DNA scanner would register Jack Morrison instead of the remnant Soldier 76 had become, perhaps old-fashioned was fine.

The key was tucked beneath a hollow garden ornament shaped like a ceramic frog, and looked pristine. Part of Soldier 76 wondered that it had lain untouched for so many years, but this was a quiet part of the city. There was no reason the key should have been disturbed. He was just being unnecessarily paranoid, perhaps.

When he unlocked the door and stepped inside, Soldier 76 immediately cursed his own lack of paranoia.

There was a blast from a shotgun, then he felt a searing pain in his torso. Instead of staggering out the front door and making a run for it, (not like he’d get that far, not when he had a stomach full of buckshot and no medical supplies), Soldier 76 kicked the door shut, drew his pulse rifle and fired at his assailant. The man was dressed in clothes that belonged to the goddamn grim reaper, all black and flow-y with a skull mask. Soldier 76 had heard of this mercenary; he’d been ghost-like on a global scale, leaving death and mayhem behind him. There were whispers that someone fitting this bastard’s description had been murdering former Overwatch agents.

As much as Soldier 76 claimed that Jack Morrison had died in Switzerland, part of him still bared its teeth at the thought of someone hurting any of his team mates. Even if they thought he was dead. Even if they had lost their hope. Soldier 76 wasn’t about to let anyone who’d hurt Jack Morrison’s friends get away, even if it meant bleeding out from his own injuries after doing the job.

He leaped at the assassin, only to clutch at thin air. Soldier 76 did a quick one-eighty, still ignoring the agony in his chest. He had adrenaline and the super soldier serum on his side, and a decent chunk of time before he crashed. Old age hadn’t been terribly kind to him, but Soldier 76 was still fast as a hare, and successfully managed to dodge the next shotgun salvo.

“What’s with the mask, old man?” The voice sounded like metal filings, raspy and mechanical. The mocking tone made Soldier 76 pissed. The sound was right next to Soldier 76’s ear, and without looking, he lunged and rolled away. He stood up and reset his stance, pulse rifle at the ready with his back against the wall.

“Afraid to show your face?”

Soldier 76 fired on instinct at the corner of the room the voice had come from. His visor was of no use; there was too much smoke, and seeing as it hadn’t picked up any life readings from the mercenary (not even infrared?), it wasn’t going to be helpful in tracking his attacker or predicting his movements.

“You’re one to talk,” snarled Soldier 76 at the shadows. A particularly dark patch began convalescing in the corner of the room, and Soldier 76 fired at it. The patch simply moved farther into the house, beyond the soldier’s sight.

The assassin had dissolved into smoke with ominous chuckling, and was nowhere to be seen.

He wouldn’t have fled; Soldier 76 hadn’t managed to land a single shot, much to his own ire. This had to be some kind of cheap tactic to make Soldier 76 drop his guard. The only sound in the dark was his own breathing and the distant music of crickets.

“Come out and fight me, you coward!”

Out of nowhere, a clawed hand in solid black armour slammed Soldier 76 by his neck against the wall. He started to bring his rifle up to shoot the other man’s still-shadowy body, but a solid blow to the spot where he’d been shot initially sent fireworks spiralling through Soldier 76’s view. The rifle was ruthlessly yanked from his grasp, possibly fracturing several fingers. It was hard to tell, with the adrenaline and sheer agony coming from his stomach. The assassin’s hand around his neck was digging into his skin and slowly starting to constrict Jack’s airway, making it harder and harder to gasp each breath. His already-poor vision started to go black.

Soldier 76 was on the verge of unconsciousness when the other man unceremoniously let him fall. Before he had a chance to recover, the assassin placed a heavy knee on his back, sending the soldier back to struggling for air. His hands were efficiently tied together and ouch, some of his fingers were definitely broken.

Unable to do much but cuss brokenly between gasps, Soldier 76 barely struggled when the mercenary propped him up against the wall of the house. The burst of energy he’d gotten from engaging in a fight was quickly evacuating his failing body, and the pain of getting shot point-blank in the stomach was finally setting in. The warmth creeping down his side could only be blood, and he wondered if this man would have time to kill him before he bled out. Or would it be shock, perhaps? Stomach wounds normally took a long time to bleed out, so getting killed by this dramatic jerk would be preferable to lying in his own gore for several hours.

“Well, let’s see the face of the infamous Soldier 76,” said the assassin. “I’m genuinely curious, I must admit. Most of those pathetic ex-Overwatch agents barely put up a fight, and you’ve caused such a ruckus over the last couple years.”

Realizing a moment too late what that meant, Soldier 76 desperately tried to struggle away, dodging the man’s clawed hands, and earned another vicious punch to his bullet wounds. Jack’s eyes flooded with stars, and the bastard took the opportunity to find the hidden catches and cruelly yank the mask, visor and all, off his face.

The sudden emptiness was absolutely terrifying. Without the specially made visor, Jack was blind. The mask had connected to a neural implant he’d had, and had compensated for and improved upon his ruined vision. The explosion in Switzerland had taken more than Jack Morrison’s reputation and best friend; flying debris had managed to reduce his right eye to a scarred mess. His already-weak left eye had also been damaged, albeit to a lesser degree. The smaller visor he’d worn before becoming Soldier 76 hadn’t been able to compensate for both eyes after the explosion.

His right eye was a complete loss, and his left was barely capable of allowing him to function in full daylight, let alone the smoky and dark room Soldier 76 was currently in. The near-blindness was a weakness the visor had taken care of.

The sudden intake of breathe from his assailant made Soldier 76 realize that he’d been recognized.

“ _Jack_? You’re alive?”

He desperately tried to kick out with his legs, anything to catch the other man off guard, but it was like slamming his limbs against a brick wall.

“You were supposed to die in Switzerland! How are you here?!”

Was that tone of voice just a bit familiar? The petulance, the rage... It couldn’t be. Soldier 76 gritted his teeth and remained quiet.

“How? Answer me, dammit!”

Shit.

“Go to hell, Gabriel,” said Soldier 76. He didn’t see the blow coming, and wasn’t able to dodge it, but he sure felt Gabriel Reyes’ boot smashing into his side. Something cracked.

“You’re so old... what happened to your face?”

“You did, you worthless monster. When you incinerated the Overwatch HQ, killed dozens of innocent people, and completely destroyed any credibility Overwatch had as a peacekeeping service. I’m blind, Reyes, and you should have stayed dead like you deserved to after what you did to our friends.”

“Still every bit the diplomat, huh, Morrison? No wonder you got promoted,” said Gabriel bitterly. His voice still sounded terrible, but behind the unfamiliar rasp there were hints of the Gabriel who Jack had loved.

Soldier 76 sighed. “Still hung up on that, I see? After all these years, after all that’s happened, you’re still pissed at me for something that wasn’t my fault or my choosing. I never wanted your stupid job, Reyes; I just wanted what was best for the team. Whatever. Nothing I say now is going to change the past. Just shoot me already, so I don’t have to listen to your bitching as I bleed out.”

There was a pause.

“I... I’m sorry, Jack.”

Soldier 76 snorted, even though it hurt. “’Sorry’ doesn’t even begin to cover all the shit you’ve inflicted on us. Overwatch was our family, Reyes. It was your family. How could you do that to them?”

“I never meant to hurt them.”

“What did you think would happen? What about Winston, and Tracer, and Mercy and Reinhardt and Ana? When you burnt everything we worked for to the ground, did you think they’d just move on to another peacekeeping service and forget everything we stood for, everything we put our lives on the line for?”

“There were traitors, Jack! In both Overwatch and Blackwatch! They informed on us, sabotaged our missions, got us killed! Why do you think Lena’s Slipstream malfunctioned? It wasn’t her fault, she was always a gifted pilot. Maybe Ana Amari would have gotten to see her daughter reach adulthood if that "routine" mission hadn’t been an ambush. I’ve been trying to hunt the moles down for years, but all I can find are loose ends and long-cold trails. You were too blind, Jack, too willing to look past others’ flaws. Blackwatch was meant to root out any weaknesses, but the United Nations tied our hands and pulled our teeth.”

“If you really believed that, why have you been killing ex-Overwatch agents?”

“I don’t know who was responsible. If it was multiple people or just a few, how high the corruption went, who knew, even who hired them to ruin us.”

“So you’ve just been killing everyone?”

Reyes snarled. “Sometimes, my temper gets the best of me. And I don’t like leaving witnesses.”

“You’re insane. You’re hunting ghosts, and becoming the very thing you want to destroy. I’ve heard rumours, Reyes. Rumours about a black-cloaked mercenary who’s been working for terrorist groups,” said Soldier 76 through gritted teeth.

“I’m just using them. I need the inside view, and the resources Talon supplies come in handy at times.”

Jack shook his head. “You’re still making excuses, just like you always did. Nothing was ever your fault, and no matter how much you always wanted the power of a high position, you couldn’t stand the responsibility that came with it. Tell me, Gabriel; if you had been promoted to Strike-Commander instead of me, would our co-workers from the Swiss HQ still be alive?”

“That wasn’t me, dammit! I didn’t blow up the headquarters!”

“Then who did?” shouted Jack.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. No matter how long it takes or who I have to eliminate to get answers. You won’t be of any use to me, so you get one chance, Morrison. You were always such a goddamn boy scout, there’s no way you were a mole. You were too damn oblivious, wearing your white heart on your sleeve. Goodbye, Jack. The next time I see you when I’m on a mission, I’ll blow your brains out if you get in my way.”

With that, the door of the safehouse slammed and the temperature inside noticeably rose. For a moment, all Soldier 76 could do was lie against the wall, stunned.

Then he realized that his hands were still tied.

“God damn it.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I might do a second chapter, either dealing with Jack fixing himself up or him having to call Angela for help. I think he'd have a bit of trouble untying his hands on his own. 
> 
> Casual reminder that I have a tumblr, thirteen-magpies.tumblr.com, and a dedicated Overwatch blog, andshesbackinthegame.tumblr.com .


End file.
